This episode explores Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi, a sweeping historical novel that reframes the Persephone myth in a reimagined fifteenth-century West Africa. You’ll hear why Ododo, a young blacksmith from Timbuktu, is one of the podcast's most compelling protagonists and how palace intrigue, shifting loyalties, and questions of agency drive this story. Peter and Orlando talk setting, character, and the real history behind the fiction to help you decide if this book belongs on your list.

If we knew that Coca-Cola was one of the deadliest products in the American diet, would we keep drinking it? In this episode, journalist Murray Carpenter joins Peter and Orlando to uncover the story behind his book Sweet and Deadly. You learn how soda corporations spent decades funding research, building shadow networks, and spreading disinformation to obscure the links between sugary drinks and chronic disease.

On this episode of Narrative Edge, Peter and Orlando dive into Colleen Oakley’s witty and fast-paced novel Jane and Dan at the End of the World. What begins as a tense dinner where Jane plans to ask for a divorce quickly turns into a chaotic hostage situation that feels ripped straight from the pages of her own failed book. With humor, heart, and unexpected twists, Oakley explores love, second chances, and what it takes to keep a marriage alive when the world feels like it’s falling apart.